


Imago Dei

by thattrainssailed



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Dark Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Religion, in part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26156062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thattrainssailed/pseuds/thattrainssailed
Summary: Hannibal watches God’s hand, bloodthirsty and merciless. It is beautiful and familiar. He does not view it as superior, though. God is not his better in malice or butchery. If anything they are equals, standing side by side with the world beneath their thumbs. He is himself more like God than anyone he has met, but he does not see himself as His image. It is at once too large and too particular, and Hannibal has no desire to emulate it. He possesses his own righteousness. He has yet to see anyone who could be said to have been made in the image of God.Then Hannibal meets Will Graham.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	Imago Dei

Hannibal has never been one for praying.

Don’t be mistaken—he believes in God well enough, has seen enough of life in such starkness that it could not be possible if not for some unseen crafter’s hand. The human body alone is evidence enough, its organs shuddering away with each passing moment; electrified meat that somehow houses the means to create art, move through the world, commit acts both cruel and merciful. No, there must have been some design for this.

And still Hannibal does not pray. He remembers all too vividly the last time he attempted to do so. Mischa’s weak body huddled against his. The frost biting at them, their captors baring their teeth in threat of the same. Darkness and hunger and the desperate plea for a saviour.

No saviour came, of course. Mischa was lost. Later, Hannibal liberated himself.

Despite his lack of piety, however, Hannibal does not feel detached from God, not in the way one might imagine. If anything, he considers the creator a kindred spirit. An artist, manipulator of the flesh, bearer of justice.

Or lack thereof.

Hannibal reads of another roof collapse, a sermon interrupted by the screams and demise of its worshippers, and he sees Him. At once righteous yet with no need for such petty things as vindication.

Hannibal watches God’s hand, bloodthirsty and merciless. It is beautiful and familiar. He does not view it as superior, though. God is not his better in malice or butchery. If anything they are equals, standing side by side with the world beneath their thumbs. He is himself more like God than anyone he has met, but he does not see himself as His image. It is at once too large and too particular, and Hannibal has no desire to emulate it. He possesses his own righteousness. He has yet to see anyone who could be said to have been made in the image of God. 

Then Hannibal meets Will Graham.

The man is nothing like any depiction of God worth mentioning. He lacks the broadness of Michelangelo; the gravitas of Raphael; the dominion of Masaccio. Will Graham is flannel and dog hair, curly hair still rain-damp, boots with frayed laces and soles bought for durability rather than aesthetic. He is an eyesore in Hannibal’s office, even more so in his dining room. The image of Will is nothing heavenly. There is nothing utilitarian about heaven. But Will speaks of monsters and that all-encompassing darkness, blue eyes burning ever darker with the brightness of his understanding. He tells Hannibal of his mind, burns himself alive in that office, and Hannibal sees Him.

He is not quite the right shape, not yet. The angles are not correct. Too acute, too confined, for something like God. Still, when Hannibal pictures Will, he is shadowed by divinity.

Hannibal wonders what similarities there are between his own plan and that of God.

~~

The blood looks black in the moonlight, Will tells him, and the younger man is reborn as they plummet to the sea. It takes him three days to properly wake after Chiyok pulls them from the frigid waves and aboard the small fishing vessel. The symbolism is so heavy handed it’s almost kitsch. But Will looks at him through stuttering lids, stitches pulling pink against his pale cheek, and Hannibal is so sanctified that he weeps.

They move frequently for the first few months. Allow a sighting before disappearing once again. Occasionally they will return to a mark for another appearance. An illusion of stasis. Eventually, they leave North America to its bloodshed and end up in Russia.

It is not to settle, of course. While the size would aid in their anonymity, several other factors make it less than ideal for permanence. They do wander, though, taking in the chill and architecture. Hannibal has not been here for several decades, and Will of course has never had cause to venture so far north-east. Winter sun casts the colours of stained glass upon the man and it is all Hannibal to do not to fall to his knees.

They take communion as often as they can. Hannibal refers to it as such in a moment of exaltation following a hunt, and Will’s smile crooks as he says something about cutting out the middleman in transubstantiation. Whatever he next had to say is swallowed by Hannibal’s blood-drenched mouth. They move, and they eat, and they worship one another, and Hannibal watches the other man shift. His body does not change and yet he broadens. Deepens. His smile widens, reaches his eyes more often. He crafts beside Hannibal and they watch the world shift beneath their thumbs.

The south of France is something of an arbitrary decision, to be honest. Hannibal knows the language fluently, and New Orleans gave Will enough French for him to pick up the rest quickly. The small village near their country house is insular but not hostile. They do not overstay their welcome when they visit, and in return they are left alone. They do not hunt close to home. By now, Will has left his cave far behind. He is no longer the loner who spent his days dying for Jack Crawford’s sins. Now, he stands with scarlet hands spread proudly, blue eyes dark as they watch the countryside sway. Hannibal embraces him, breathing in the metallic scent that trails his husband.They are more alike than they have ever been, and yet something else is present in Will besides Hannibal. This did not enter, however. It emerged.

It is at once righteousness and detachment. Creation and annihilation. The cant of hymns, and the rubble that executes its choir. Will Graham rises and the world sinks before him, begs for his mercy, knows all too well his facility for cruelty. Together they bathe in blood and find heaven stained black in the moonlight.

They are kindred, in each other’s image, but they are not the same. Each time Will moves, Hannibal finds himself tilted on his axis. Manipulated. Bearing witness.

When Hannibal prays, his lips fall beside Will Graham’s ear.

**Author's Note:**

> Legally every time I become hyperfixated on a new piece of media I have to write a pretentious fic with increasingly obscure religious metaphors instead of actual substance.


End file.
